Day Two: Anglo Irish Bank Trial

- Day two of the Anglo Irish Bank trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court

- Former chairman Seán FitzPatrick, and former executives Patrick Whelan and William McAteer have pleaded not guilty to providing unlawful financial assistance to 16 people to buy shares in the bank

- First time in the history of the State that 15 jurors have been sworn in to hear a trial, but only 12 will retire to consider a verdict

16:22 Evidence has ended for the day in court 19.

Before the court rose, Mr McCaffrey told Brendan Grehan SC, defending Pat Whelan, the idea behind the CFDs was to provide the Quinn family members with independent wealth. He said that this "went fatally wrong in the end".

The jury has just heard that Sean Quinn will give evidence tomorrow. They have been sent out so that a legal matter can be resolved between counsel.

Quinn Group CEO Liam McCaffrey is scheduled to give evidence today.

13:11 The trial has broken for lunch.

Before the break Mr Coffey was under some colourful cross examination from Michael O'Higgins SC, counsel for Seán FitzPatrick.

“It's a bit like that movie, Trading Places. Win, lose or draw, they always get paid”, Mr O'Higgin's said, describing how the big international institutions profit from the use of CFDs.

“It's all done in the dark, To use a buzzword, there may be a lack of transparency,” Mr O'Higgins asks. The economist agrees that this is an issue with the use of CFDs.

The court heard that the investment banks lend shares to people who bet against the value of the share.

This is called short selling. If a person feels a share might drop in value they can borrow the shares from an investment bank. They then sell it at a high price, wait for it to drop and buy it back at a lower price.

The investor then returns the borrowed shares to the bank and pockets the profit.

12:39 The jury is hearing evidence from Seamus Coffey, a lecturer in economics at University College Cork who is explaining Contracts for Difference.

He compared entering a contract for difference to betting on a horse. You don't own the horse but your bet depends on its performance. With CFDs, you don't buy the share, you make a bet on its price rising.

He said there was a potential for very large returns on your money with CFDs but also for losses.

If the share price falls, you have to keep topping up the amount of money you have invested in betting on the price of the share - a process called meeting your margin calls.

11:55 Former company secretary Natasha Mercer told the court there would normally be up to ten scheduled board meetings a year.

In 2008 there were 33 board meetings including three on one day in September 2008.

She said decisions were taken by the board or by committees acting with the approval of the board. She said she would consult with the CEO David Drumm and chairman Seán FItzPatrick in advance of board meetings.

Ms Mercer agreed during cross examination that Seán FItzPatrick was a non-executive director on the board of Anglo and that his "career ended" in 2004. She also said she was aware that he was also a non-executive director of a large number of other companies.

She said she was aware that concern about Sean Quinn's stake in Anglo through Contracts for Difference was discussed at numerous board meetings towards the end of 2007.

11:00: The jury is shown a graph illustrating the declining share price of Anglo Irish Bank from January 2008 to December 2008 when share prices fell from over €10 to 17 cent.

The previous year the share price had been at €15 at the beginning of the year.

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